Warning to the light-hearted: this gets pretty sick. Makes me wonder at my own imagination actually. Don't worry, things will get less, well, gross later on. I just have to get this out of the way.

Another note: I must reiterate that I don't know much at all about human biology, military tactics or interrogation techniques, and am making this shit up as I go. Hopefully I get some of it right, but if I don't, well, I was never in a military situation and have nothing really to go on. LOL. Just ignore fallacies. :D

One last thing: You guys rock, thank you SO much for all the feedback, and thanks to judocat once again for betaing this for me.

Chapter Thirteen: Part Two

Abe:

I honestly couldn't think of many things more disturbing than what I saw in Rielle's mind while she was wavering on tears trying to continue her tale. I had seen worse while working for the BPRD, but I had not seen total war or how POWs were treated in those situations, and had never experienced firsthand the level of horror that this young girl had witnessed. She was not yet 30 years old and she had seen more in that short time than your average 60 year old. I really didn't know that to make of that. With what she had revealed in the past hour I didn't know if I felt sorry for her or was fearful of her, or both. She made the choices she did for greedy reasons and she knew it. I also ascertained she regretted most of those decisions. In her mind, she was a worse monster than a man like Ackland, and I admired her guts for covering herself like this for so long.

Too bad she ran into me, I thought with a huff. She may have had a few more years of anonymity before something else happened that would have forced her to reveal herself, or before she ended up dead. Either way, I was still unsure of what to make of her. What she'd done was deplorable, but her regret, her love for Lavinia and her personality all endeared her to me.

Rielle was again coiled into a little ball on the sofa, now at a distance from Red, who had not so subtly shifted himself out of arms reach of the girl. I couldn't blame him. I touched his mind earlier when she told us about shooting that man while he was eating with his family, and I sensed such a surge of revulsion from him that it surprised me. He usually kept those types of feelings reserved for Nazi's and other monstrosities. He had dealt with psychos, monsters, conjured spirits, etc, with contempt and excessive force, but he rarely dealt with humans that way. But from what I understood of Hellboy's mind at that moment, he had made the momentary conclusion that Rielle was just as bad as those evil entities… and that bothered me. I wanted to brush it off as a temporary lapse in judgment, but I could not. I had felt the exact same thing.

Lavinia also seemed to feel the same as Hellboy about her best friend. Her eyes were wide in shock and filled with tears, and I did not even have to strain myself to feel the thoughts of betrayal and anger coming off of Lavinia's mind in waves. There was a small part of her that didn't quite believe what her friend was relaying but it was diminishing with every word that came from Rielle's mouth. To Lavinia, it felt like the last decade was a lie, and she was in so much pain.

As usual, I could and would not touch the Professor's mind, but his emotions were written plainly on his face. Even though his mouth was turned down in a grimace, his eyes sparkled in interest. He had suspected something was different about the girl, he'd so much as told me a couple of days ago, but I don't think he expected a secret this extreme. His scientific brain wanted more information, and despite the terrible things he'd heard already, he knew it wasn't the complete story. He was incapable of making a verdict until he had heard the entire story for himself, and even after that, he'd probably do some research first before condemning the girl. I envied him that sense of reasoning.

"Are you sure?" Rielle asked, still hesitant on telling this part of the story. I nodded again. Although disturbing, this part of the story might help the others see that she was not entirely evil and had gone through a lot to get where she was now.

"Okay." I watched her hands shake violently as she reached to the floor for her coffee cup, which was immediately topped up by the Professor. "First, I have to clear up a few things. Abe asked how I could block him like I do. Umm, they trained me for that at CSIS. It was part of the anti-interrogation exercises we went through. If we were ever caught, nothing could be revealed. Really, how many people would actually kill themselves before they're captured? My unit knew the number would be low, and so they took steps to prevent any information from being revealed during interrogation or torture."

She took a sip of her coffee and looked at me. "We were taught how to envision things like brick walls, packs of dogs, fences, whatever barrier we could conjure up. It was very basic. They really didn't think that the enemy had a psychic on their side to pull the facts out of our heads, it was just a basic technique to prevent information gathering. I just took it a bit further."

"I found myself psychics, monks, people like that, to train me. Everyone has the capability but hardly anybody makes use of that potential. I did. I practiced for hours upon hours with these psychics until they couldn't read anything from me anymore, except what I purposely projected. For example, say I had information on how to dismantle a bomb I had planted, and the enemy wanted it. This is just exaggeration to illustrate the point, but say they had a psychic. That psychic's purpose was to get that information out of my head. What I trained myself to do is envision something completely different, like puppies or roses or something fluffy like that, and in the meantime block the real information from leaking out."

That was interesting, I'd heard of that before. "What about kicking me out like you did in the interrogation chamber?"

"That was just another trick I picked up… if someone was trying to force their way into my head, I would envision a brick wall, and them running smack into it… or a giant fist pushing them out, like I did to you. Sorry, by the way."

"Hmm."

"Anyways, that's how I've been kicking Abe out of my head." She breathed deep and had another sip of her coffee. I could tell she was very tired, but she wanted to get this over with. I wanted to test this story out a few more times, but I left her alone.

"So, those guys in the desert got you… then what?" I prompted her. I already knew parts of this story, but for my own verification and to complete the story for the others, she had to tell it. Even so, I was not particularly looking forward to the visuals that no doubt would come pouring out of her head and into mine. Comes with the territory, I suppose.

Rielle:

I don't want to talk about this, goddammit! I don't see how any of this shit is relevant, I thought as I glanced up at the group again. They all hated me, I could tell. I would too if I were in their position. I couldn't see how this was going to help the situation any. And, to be honest, reliving this crap wasn't very high on my list of fun ways to spend a day either. And getting mauled by Ackland was fun? Good point.

"They put me in the truck, gagged, blinded and cuffed. I was searched, relieved of my weaponry and technical equipment, thrown in the back of the jeep and surrounded by guards. My companions were also searched and robbed of their weapons, but their bodies were left where they were. I don't know if they were ever retrieved, but at the moment it just hurt to see them lying there like garbage.

"We drove back to the compound and they threw me out of the Jeep and dragged me by my… well, they got me inside and took me underground. By now I could think a little better and understand bits and pieces of what they were saying, and it didn't sound all that good. They knew I was there to take them out, but they didn't know why or who ordered the hit. That, they said, is what I would tell them soon enough. What they didn't know is that I really didn't know why the hit was ordered, and only knew that my contact wanted this place destroyed. I didn't know the real name of my contact or how to get in touch with him. I wasn't about to tell them that though, they would have just shot me in the head and been done with it."

I hesitated again. I didn't know why this shit was pertinent; Abe was so sure it was important. I looked to him again, totally lost. What does this have to do with anything? I projected in hopes that he was still listening.

Just Trust Me, Okay? He projected back.

"Abe seems to think this is important so I'll tell you what happened next. They tied me down to a table. My arms, thighs, and neck, were tied to the table with canvas straps. One of them had a needle and took a sample of my blood. At the time I didn't know what for, maybe for DNA identification but I found out pretty damned quick. A man who knew enough English to get by was brought in for basic questioning. It was right out of a cop movie… the good cop and the bad cop." I said with a snort. I memorized what had happened, envisioning his face, his big dark pleading eyes, false through and through. It was laughable then and it was laughable now. "He was asking me these questions in the nicest tone he could muster, trying to persuade me to talk, saying' shit like 'they won't hurt you if you talk' and trying to entice me with water, the usual stuff. After a while they got impatient with me. They… they took… oh fuck, I can't do this." I had to stop. I couldn't tell them. I vainly wished I could project my memory on the wall for them, like a movie. It would be a hell of a lot easier to do that than describe things in detail. I almost asked Abe if that were possible, but it was a silly idea and I discounted it.

My hesitation seemed to have caught Red's attention, as he turned towards me instead of facing partially away from me with his eyes closed like before. Broom was sitting there patiently, and I wished I could see what he was thinking, I envied Abe the ability. Lavinia, I couldn't even look at.

I went on, "They took some basic tools: hammers, spikes, shit like that, and busted a couple of my ribs, played with the bullet holes in my shoulder and leg... threatened to do… stuff to me. Slapped me around a little too. When that didn't work, they brought out the big guns." And oh boy did I enjoy that, I thought sarcastically, trying very hard to keep my eyes open, because every time I blinked I saw the ceiling of the room. "They hooked these electrodes to different parts of me, first my head, feet, and then they got to more… sensitive areas."

Lavinia audibly hissed. I knew she could almost feel it. She would, the only one in the room who could sympathize. The men only twitched a little and Abe crossed his legs.

"Again, that didn't work. They got a few screams but that was it. By now they were really pissed." I was trying to make this as short as possible. Frankly I no longer gave a shit what the others thought; all I wanted was a bed and a few hours to use it. "I don't know how long this went on for, the sun wasn't all that visible, the room was dark, and it could have been hours. So yeah, after that they just slapped me around a bit more and threw me in a cell."

I stopped to assess the room, get some reaction. You're stopping because you a big chicken-shit, that's why. I had to agree again with my evil brain. They didn't look too happy. I put my head on my knees and continued, "I was there for a few hours licking' my wounds…they weren't as bad as I thought, really, but I couldn't see too well in the dark. It just left me more time to think. I got all hopeful that someone would rescue me, but I knew damned well that nobody would. The only person who knew my location was my contact, and I seriously doubted they'd send anyone after me, after all, agents like me are expendable.

"Okay… well, a few hours later there was some bangin' and crashin', and my cell door opened. The English speaking guy was there and they took me back to the same old' room, got the electrodes ready. That whole deal went on for a few hours, and they got impatient with me again, and brought out the sharp stuff. Another fun filled day for a secret agent." I said with a sarcastic flourish. I lifted my shirt again, not all the way, just up to right under my breasts, and needlessly pointed out the scar running up my torso. "This is part of what they did to me. I remember I said something sarcastic, and a big guy with tattoos on his forehead got out a machete and…I felt them lift my shirt and say something about feeding the dogs, then nothing but pain. The blade sliced through the skin quite easily…"

I knew I was rambling, not making much sense at all, but there wasn't much I could do about that, with the visuals, the shine of the blade reflecting into my eyes and the sensation of warmth running down my sides as they ripped me open. That wasn't exactly something I wanted to tell them about in detail. Abe knew, he could see it and that was enough. I didn't want Lavinia to have nightmares. "I… I could tell that they injected me with some sort of anesthetic, but whatever it was didn't work entirely well. I felt everything, and it took a lot of effort not to scream myself hoarse and tell them everything down to my street address and shoe size. I just tried to keep my mind busy with something else, thinking about the exercises they taught me. That only worked for a while. I remember almost choking on the blood that burst from my throat…but they put this tube in and solved that little problem. They wanted me alive for this. They finished cutting me open, just the skin, really, and…"

"Stop… just stop." A shaky voice whispered.

I was surprised to notice it was Red who told me to stop talking. Up until now he'd kept his mouth shut. It took me a moment, but I finally had the nerve to look at him. I was shocked to see his yellow eyes shine with unshed tears. I couldn't stand it. "Red, don't. I don't deserve it."

Abe huffed, and was about to say something but I interrupted him. "You asked and you're going to get your answer." I said, looking under my eyebrows right at Abe. He sat back into his seat and clasped his hands in his lap. Then I looked at Red, afraid to reach out for him but I did anyways, taking his stone hand in both of mine. Amazingly it was warm, and not as jagged and rough as I thought it would be. "I remember just last night I told you I didn't want to talk about it. Almost threw a hissy fit about it actually. Well, I still don't want to, but I guess I have to anyways. If anything, I have to just to be as honest with you as you and your family has been with me."

I felt wetness on my cheeks and realized I was crying. Some tough Bond-girl you are. I mentally smacked myself for that little thought, and let go of Red's hand before going on with the story. "Well, to make a long story even longer… umm, let's just say they did this for a while, and then they left. They kept me there on the table with my entrails exposed to the world and inside I was afraid they'd send in the dogs for a feeding or something. I honestly didn't think I'd live too long so I just shut my eyes and waited. I was bleeding too much to live all that long. Then they brought in the IV equipment, blood bags, and medical supplies so I knew I was fucked."

I went on from there to tell them about the next couple of hours. I left a lot of it out, as what I had already revealed was nasty enough. I didn't want to disgust Red any more than I had, I felt horrible enough already. I didn't want him or the others to feel sorry for me, because I deserved every sting, every cut, for what I had done over those years.

Finally, I got around to the less torturous part. "After a few more hours they put me back in my cell, untied, just left me on the floor. They had to decency to give me a blanket but not much else. Frankly I was worried that if I ate or drank anything it would fall out of my belly, even though I knew I was sewed up. They kept the IV tubes in me though. I guess they didn't want me to bleed out just yet."

I remembered feeling dead. The floor was cold and gritty and it smelled horrid. I remember the tingling burn from the cut on my belly and various other places I didn't tell the group about. I remember wishing I had just shot myself before those assholes got a hold of my gun. But the thing I remembered most was my grandmother's face in my fevered dreams, this time not looking at me like I did something wrong, but instead holding out some water and smiling. Like I had repented for my sins and that maybe she was forgiving me. I knew it was crazy sounding but I told it to the group anyways.

"I don't know how long I was there, I kept passing out, waking up, and passing out again, so it might have been a day or an hour. I just remember the floor shaking." I closed my eyes again, seeing it all. "There must have been a blast, an explosion somewhere on the base. All these footsteps outside my cell, they were all panicking, running towards whatever blew up. I remember feeling all happy like someone sent the army into save me but inside I knew it was something else, nobody was coming for me."

Finish this. "I don't know when it happened, but somehow a big hole appeared in one of the walls of my cell and rocks rained down all over me. A grenade, or landmine explosion, maybe. I just saw a big black starry sky and smelled fresh air and knew I had to get out of there. It took me a while but I managed to drag myself to the wall and over it without busting too many stitches."

The cool air outside felt wonderful, I recalled, different than the dank air inside my cell. The wind cooled the sweat on my skin and I never felt anything as wonderful as the loose sand and grass on my back and I slowly crawled further and further away from the room. "There were men everywhere, all fighting each other. I couldn't tell who was fighting whom, really, not in the dark, not all drugged up like I was. I just remember looking around in a haze for some type of transportation. I didn't realize I was pretty much a naked cut up woman dragging her ass across the sand and that sooner or later those guys would notice something like that."

It didn't take them long, actually. They immediately started shooting at me, and amazingly every single bullet missed. "As soon as they fired at me, some other men showed up and shot them all down. I didn't know who these dudes were but they sure as hell didn't work for the Canadian government. Maybe they just helped me out because the other guys wanted to kill me. You know how the saying goes; the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

The men hooked me under the arms and dragged me to a truck and very gently lifted me onto the bed, and left me there while they finished off the guys in the base. To this day, I still don't know who those guys were but I was grateful nonetheless. "I guess our government weren't the only ones unhappy with this group of psychos. At least whomever these men worked for were smart enough to send more than five people to take care of the lot of them. By the time they were finished, the base was nothing but a smoking mass of rock."

Lavinia:

I don't know when I got off the chair, or when I moved across the room and sat down on the floor in front of Rielle, but by the time she was telling us about the all out war between the two factions, I was kneeling in front of her trying not to cry.

"Finally, we left. About four guys got in the back of the truck with me and attended to my wounds as best they could in a moving vehicle, and we got the hell out of there. They didn't press me for info or anything; they just let me lay there to stare at the stars. They spoke Farsi as well, but they didn't say much during the drive back to wherever we were going. I was asleep for most of the trip."

Ellie's eyes were bloodshot when she lifted her head and saw me sitting there in front of her. I didn't make a move, just sat there quietly as she stared at me, trying to wheedle out a reaction. I learned a thing or two about her tale and kept my face stony. She sighed and put her head back down.

"I don't remember much of what happened after that. I just remember being interrogated again, but nothing like before, just some simple questions. They took good care of me though. They cleaned my wounds and re-stitched me, and kept me fed and watered. They mostly left me alone though and for that I'll be forever grateful.

It must have been a couple of weeks but I could finally walk around a little, so they sent me in to talk to their superiors. They took me to this nice big white room full of dark men in suits and military garb, and they told me in no uncertain words that they had been contacted by a government official and that someone would be coming to retrieve me soon. I really didn't know what to think about that. What government? What would they do to me? And really, did I care after all that shit I just went through?"

"So, what, some dudes came and took you home?" I asked, curious. I remember when she showed up on my doorstep a couple years back, looking like she had been put through a meat grinder. Maybe because just a couple weeks before she'd been ripped to shreds by Iranian terrorists? Man, that sounded crazy.

"No. Not yet, anyways. After another week some obviously Canadian officials showed up and took me away back to Canada. I felt bad that those Iranian dudes that helped me out didn't even get thanked for saving my ass, but at the time all I cared about was getting home. These guys took me back to the CSIS base where I had been trained and I stayed in their medical center for a couple of months. I'm actually surprised that they didn't' just shoot me in the head and leave me in Iran, really. That's what they always told us they would do if just such a situation happened. But I guess they wanted information from me. I had seen the inside of the base, and a few of the guys that got away from that massive slaughter the night I was rescued were people that our government wanted exterminated, but didn't have decent physical descriptions for. That, plus I had heard enough of their plans that our government didn't think it was feasible to put a bullet in me just yet.

"So I told them everything I knew. Well, I told them most of it, but I made sure that they knew I kept a few facts back just in case they were planning on blowing me away. They weren't too happy with me but I saved my own ass that day. After gaining assurances they wouldn't shoot me, I finagled a way for me to retire with my life intact and a bus ticket home. But before they let me go home, they had to have my word that I would never open my mouth about this place or my missions. I gave it willingly, because honestly, I didn't think I'd ever have to tell about it, and really didn't want to. Just to be sure they told me that they'd have people watching me, tapping my phone lines, making sure I didn't go running off to a meeting with terrorists. They threatened my family, my friends, and hell, even my enemies. I gave whatever promises they wanted and they let me go. I went back to Standing Buffalo a few weeks later and ended up at Lavinia's place."

And that's when she showed up at my door all bruised and battered. I remember thinking that some drunken asshole boyfriend must have gone a bit too far and landed her in the hospital, and let her in. Ellie told me some story about a coke habit and a series of asshole boyfriends. She asked if she could stay with me a while until she recovered enough to stand on her own. Not thinking much I said yes. I missed the bitch and had worried a lot about her in the time she was gone. Hell, I even drove her to 'group' sessions in Regina for recovering drug abusers. I wonder what those really were, a group of secret agents checking on her, like probation officers?

She hadn't said a word for a full minute. I guess that's the end of the story. I hated sitting there feeling stupid and uninformed, but I kept my mouth shut as Rielle finally broke down and cried. I couldn't help myself, I reached up and dragged her onto the floor with me, holding her tight and stroking her hair. I felt her arms circle around me and she kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" She sobbed onto my shoulder for a good five minutes while I brushed the knots out of her hair with my fingers and rocked back and forth until she slowed her crying. I didn't' know I was crying too until I saw teardrops on her back.

I truly didn't know how to feel about her. She was my best friend but she was a completely different person than I thought she was not two hours ago. She had killed people for money. She had lied to me these past two years about where she was and what she was doing. She'd seen and done things that I'd only seen in movies, and even then I didn't like very much. If I couldn't take the violence on screen how would I take it for real? How did she take it for real? Could I handle what she just told me and come out of it still seeing her as a friend, or would she be some strange creature to me now, someone who had once been my friend but was now just some secret agent. If she lied about something this big, what else had she lied about?

I found myself doubting almost everything she had said to me over the past couple of years, and looking over some incidents that were now partially explainable because of the tale she just told me, like, how she was able to beat up that group of guys that pounced us last August in north central Regina, or how she was able to identify what was so wrong about some of those war movies, like the tactics or the environment or the mentalities, which she almost yelled about during the flicks. It was weird.

Rielle had finished sobbing now and was just curled up almost in my lap, hiccupping and apologizing still. I didn't know what to do. The men were smart and didn't make a move, even though I could tell Red wanted to get off the couch and join in the little sob group on the floor. He didn't though, and for that I was grateful. Right now I could barely handle Ellie.

After a few minutes, Broom shifted and got out of his chair. Abe also stood up and moved around the room. I couldn't tell where but I think he was pacing. Red stayed where he was, he was the only one of the three men I could see. He had moved closer to us but stayed on the couch, bent forward with his elbows on his knees, and he kept his eyes on us two. I wanted to get up and move to another room, his stare was making me just a little bit uncomfortable. I didn't know what to do.

I didn't know Rielle was asleep until Red told me. I looked at her sleeping face on my shoulder and sighed. She could use the nap, after all that shit she just told us. Actually, so could I. I didn't fight it when Red hooked his right arm under Rielle and lifted her into his arms. He asked the Professor where he could put her, and Broom just told him to leave her on the couch for now until they could figure out what to do with her. So he did. I stayed on the floor next to her, feeling a little useless but not knowing what else to do either.